Thursday, October 29, 2015

Here's a reminder to keep both your eyes and mind open the next time you are scrabbling through a junk box at your local flea market. This score was actually one of two roller skate keys, the only roller skate keys in the vicinity or in all of the universe as far as I knew, displayed on the palm of a fellow buyer's hand who wanted to show me his find. I was so effusive and my voice so full of longing that he very kindly gave me one of them. The cost, when I took it to the register, was just twenty-five cents.

Roller skate key necklace

It is now part of a very simple necklace and currently one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. Anyone my age who spots it around my neck remembers the old adjustable metal roller skates that fit around the soles of your shoes and that feeling of mechanical competence and no-nonsense, can-do attitude that possession of a roller skate key guaranteed. When they spot the key around my neck they exclaim, "Awwww..." in the tone of voice usually reserved for the first sighting of an adorable puppy. As for millenials and their ilk who have absolutely no idea what this object is: screw 'em, they can make necklaces out of nostalgic junk from their own pasts.